Signs of Bad Signs II : Movies, etc

One day I heard an interview of F. Luchini, a French actor, who explained that in the beginning of a love story, he gave a rendez-vous with his lover in Paris, in a street, in front of a theater, and when he saw her coming, she was wearing an ugly scarf, so ugly it became comme un caillou dans sa chaussure, like a stone in his shoe : for the rest of the day he couldn’t really focus, and in the end… he knew this relationship would be impossible.

I found it pretty rude – everybody makes mistakes (like wearing anything cheetah for women or like sandals & socks for men). But it was probably a good symbol for what happens – with more subtleties – in all beginnings.

In love stories : bad faith (“I’ve never said that!”), playing the victim, not really listening, lies, a will to change you, greed, constant gossips, wearthercocking, etc… It’s an interesting field to study – including our ways of being blind in front of it!

Signs of Bad Signs : our shades of narcissism

A few days ago I watched Mary and the Witch’s Flower, a Japanese animated movie, the first one from a new studio (founded by guys from Ghibli). I was pretty happy to watch it, and then… bad signs, in a row :

• The first one is the script. Here you are with characters you don’t really care about, in a story you constantly want to sigh about.
• The second one is : they stole everything they could from the Master (Miyazaki) : a redhead character (Ponyo), a girl/witch with a broom and a cat (Kiki), a way to watch nature, a weird old principal (Chihiro), etc. Add the “school for wizards” and a mark in her hands (not on her forehead, haha), and you sigh more and more.
• The third one is very small, and it’s been the worse : useless pressing dialog. For example : In the night, Mary is in her room. She hears a strange noise outside. She turns her head towards the window, and says “What’s that strange noise?”. PFFFF sorry if I roll my eyes but not sorry. Miyazaki would have never allowed that. Show, don’t tell, silly!

Bad signs are signs you have to stop the movie you’re watching. It’s your instinct and your experience talking to you. Therefore I did stop the movie.

And then all the questions about bad signs :

• Can we sort them in categories?
• Is it unfair? Can we be wrong?
• After a first bad sign do we switch on our alert probes? To check & detect more?
• Can we be lured? On purpose? Bad signs as manipulation?
• Do we disguise “it’s to difficult for me” into bad signs?
• What is it “to insist despite of bad signs”?
• When does our brain stay blind?
• Bad signs in a love affair, in fandom, in business, in a job interview?
• Resistance to change?
• Detection : instinct or intelligence?
• What if you’re prisoner with bad signs around?
• Something bad… but no bad signs at all. What the?

Hmmm… are there real, unfailing, solid bad signs? Like, well, sandals & socks?

OK, THAT is impossible, right?

Thanks for reading!

Paul Valéry : « A difficulty is a light. An insurmountable difficulty…

Paul Valéry : “A difficulty is a light. An insurmountable difficulty is a sun”.

Une difficulté est une lumière. Une difficulté insurmontable est un soleil.

Yessss you could say it like that : “Challenges are good”, but P. V. is a poet, right?

This quote itself is an example of why I love this thinker. Two short sentences and here you are, wondering. “A sun?”. And this guy does this all the time…

Valéry’s notebooks are exhausting, because you never stop navigating into clouds of great ideas, seeds, impulsions for the mind.

 

Hmmm what do I get?…

1. A way to apply Amor Fati, “I love what happens to me”.
2. If it’s difficult it’s entertaining, challenging.
3. It’s a light : if you incorportate the difficulty to your process, it can be a purpose, a support, a help for life map drawing.
4. Then it’s really a “light” : a difficulty in a process shows you something, a way, a path.
5. You can’t touch the sun, nor contemplate it, but it can be a center, a warmth provider, a milestone.
6. People will ask you why you do it; then they ask you how.
7. Does the process change you (the light)? Forever (the sun)?
8. Are diffculties surprises? What is a map? How do we find/draw it?
9. What if the difficulty come from inside you?
10. A fool fails because he doesn’t see what’s difficult. What is difficult forces you to think, therefore can make light bulbs appear in your head.
11. How do YOU read it?

 

Let Jean de la Bruyère tell us the pre-final word :

Les miracles naissent des difficultés

Out of difficulties grow miracles

 

And Wittgenstein gives us a present for the end :

Nous attendons à tort une explication alors que c’est une description qui est la solution de la difficulté.

We are wrongly expecting an explanation, whereas the solution of the difficulty is a description.

 

Thanks for reading!

 

 

 

Instagram : bodylanguage

Stormy Evening Photography 2 – Black & White

 

Outside light of the left

Outside light on the right

These clouds

Inside/Shelter

Waterbudding & Recombinations : To learn is to unlearn?

It came in a conversation.

There are two ways of learning :

1. One is to pile up knowledge. Your culture gets bigger, like a balloon.
2. One is to unlearn.

 

We all stacklearn! We know more. At the same time, as the skyscraper grows, maybe the first floors vanish. That’s OK. You know more this and you know less that – because it lost it accuracy, or whatever.

 

To learn-unlearn seems to be cleverer, right? Our new knowledges have an effect of what we already know.

• Ideas recombines!
• They struggle to find their place!
• They fight. They dance!
• They cut old branches!
• They water buds!
• They add features to the engine!

 

Heyyy I found the final word for this article :

 

Them with an open book is a student

Them with three open books is a thinker

 

 

Have a nice day. Thanks for reading.

 

Photos : Galen Rowell

Do your shopping/Take your pick

There’s always one moment in a month when you want to metablog.

 

Yesterday I discovered somebody read about sixty pages of this blog, and I wondered :

What did they find?

…painters & photographers, haikus, quotes, small ideas : Unexpected Connections & Sparks Exchanges – I even made a List of Sorts of Blog Articles…

It seems “constantly random”, but my followers know there’s a structure under. Therefore I metablogged about it :

• Finder Keeper Sharer, “What is my blog about?”

 

My sweet will is to share, to invite you to pick tools and ideas, then share again. These are not my ideas, but good ones I found which are worth spreading. Well… I think so!

 

Dreamread, take your pick. Find an ideatool and use it another way. You’re invited to do your shopping here. Explore more. Use my blog as a table of content. Stealfind what I wanted to say. Bendfind what I didn’t say (and tell it back to me, thank youuuu).

What I like the most, probably, is :

When an idea you find in a blog, in a book, in a conversation, recombines with other ideas you have in mind at the moment.

 

Recombining. That’s the subject of another article, right?

 

 

Thanks for reading!

 

Stormy Evening Photography 1

 

 

 

 

Make your “not enough” a SCFIM (a Splendid, Complex, Fast, Interesting Machinery)

Make your “not enough” a SCFIM (a Splendid, Complex, Fast, Interesting Machinery)

This tool is used when your you don’t have the means to do your mission.

1. You can lead a military team – it’s way too small for what you’re asked for into battle.
2. You’re given a corner in a big store – too little to reach your goals.
3. You have to take pictures at a wedding but your big Nikon just died and you have to use a point an click shitty camera.
4. You’re a composer but you’re locked for months with a flute and sheet paper.
5. You feel that your destiny is to write a book but you have no ideas at all.
6. Etc.

 

Lament! Rage! Despondence and frustration! You have “not enough”! You could do much better, right?

This is the path we all take. Along with all these :

• Sarcasms
• Trying to convince upper hierarchy that you’re spoiled
• Watching the disaster coming
• Run away
• Become cold or indifferent
• Sacrifice
• Say “I told you so”

 

That’s boring. My pattern is to roll up your sleeve and build a SCFIM. Make your “not enough” a Splendid, Complex, Fast, Interesting Machinery. It’s elegant!

Smile! Amor Fati! Mute your carps into dolphins. Be fast and elegant. Invent your effectiveness. Surprise yourself. Find possibilities. Open doors. Make it mobile, splendid, clever, complex, fast, elegant, surprising, interesting!

(OK let’s call it MSCCFESIM)

Thanks for reading!

 

 

IDM & Math Rock

Hi everyone, I discovered the word “IDM” yesterday (stands for “Intelligent Dance Music“) and it made me think of this idea of “Math Rock“. Let’s ask Wikipedia about this one :

Math rock is a style of indie rock that emerged in the late 1980s in the United States, influenced by post-hardcore, progressive rock bands such as King Crimson, and 20th century minimal music composers such as Steve Reich. Math rock is characterized by complex, atypical rhythmic structures (including irregular stopping and starting), counterpoint, odd time signatures, angular melodies, and extended, often dissonant, chords. It bears similarities to post-rock.

This definition is enough to put a big smile on my face. Crimson and Reich, wahhhh!

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_rock
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_dance_music

 

When I think about Math Rock I think about the groupe Battles. Atlas indeed is like crazy crimsonian :

 

Yes, if you listen to Crimson fury after that, you’ll find the links. And there’s fun in listening to the parts (the guitars weaving, the crackling drums, the bass…) :

 

OK if you’re in the mood you can Google “best math rock albums” or “best intelligent dance music albums”. And get a headache?

 

So let’s extract the pattern : In a field, there’s a movement named “math something” or “intelligent something” by the public, which shows a creative complexification of a field.

(Yeah some’ll think it’s all “elitist and derogatory towards other genres” – so there!)

What if you “mathed” something? Intelligent poetry? Math marketing? Photography? Love? What is this :

“complex, atypical rhythmic structures (including irregular stopping and starting), counterpoint, odd time signatures, angular melodies, and extended, often dissonant, chords”

…applied to teaching, writing, sex, blogging, or business?

Is there a way to grow, blossom and climb, propelled by intelligence instead of brute force and traditional tools?

Etc…

 

Thanks for reading!

Bonchô Haiku : “With an exasperated air…

With an exasperated air
in her hair she strokes
the comb at random

Bonchô

 

 

L’air exaspéré
dans ses cheveux elle passe
le peigne au hasard

Jazz your creativity (the cinematographer’s example)

I’m watching a GREAT documentary about cinematographers, named “Cinematographer Style” (it’s there : https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0847474/ and it’s 7.1 on IMDB, which is not bad at all if you know what it means).

110 of the world’s top cinematographers discuss the art of how and why films look the way they do.

What impresses me is that the director trusted the WORDS of these cinematographers (yes, directors of photography, the guys responsible of the image in movie making) so much that he never shows extracts of movies. You just have these geniuses talking about what they do.

And they’re clever, they’re smart, they’re THINKERS!

Something emerges of this :

There’s a dance between :

1. They are skilled and they have ideas and a vision and they exactly know what to do.
2. They adapt, they watch “the moment”, what the city gives, what the actors give, what the sun or the clouds give. They are opened and they dance with the necessities and what happens.

I also love these guys because they lecture us the splendidest way, and they’re always dancing with two sides of reality :

1. They are artists but they are technicians
2. They use natural light and artificial light
3. They have a strong personality but they have to follow the director
4. Thinkers but practical

Well, that’s all. Watch it if you find it and have fun : apply their words to your field. Learn from them. And if you’re interested, watch the films they worked on!

It made me happy, because they are generous thinkers…

Thanks for reading!

Black and white photography : Lille TGV Station, France

Roger Dean, English fantasy artist

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Dean_(artist)

I know his work because he made many paintings for the group YES. I used them as desktop wallpapers when I was 25…

You’ll find hundreds others on the web.

Have a nice day!

JP

 

 

 

 

N/N-1 Business Bullshittery

ONE

Evaluation based on numbers is a bullshite minefield. Each steps spurts numbers, statistics, calculations.

Which mean nothing but bring managers the illusion of mastery.

Digits Masters Detrimentors

TWO

The N-1 bullshite is one of most simple bullshite poo of the business world.

“Last year you made 100 – this year you make 90 : you have obviously a problem, come to my office”

But :

1. Contingency : Maybe last year you got an unexpected big order from another company, and without this order you would have made 60, therefore you’re doing great today, but it’s hidden in numbers
2. Market’s vagary : Maybe the “hit” you got last year is postponed this year for the month after, therefore you’ll hit the roof in a month
3. Thus, prepare to have a “problem” next year, because of the N-1 bullshite
4. Non significant : Maybe the “analyzed” field is too little : for example you sold 4 staplers in August 1976 and 3 in August 1977 so you’re at -25% – maybe you’ll sell 5 in a year and you’ll be great (and you become an “erratic employee”)
5. Events : “Your stock is too high this year (+35%!)” but there’s a reason your manager ignore (there’s a big event in two weeks and you’ll sell every single piece)
6. Not mastering the whole world : Maybe you’re at +135% but there was a shortage last year and it did not depend on you
7. Purpose : You have a shitty manager, so you make everything possible to get him bad number-indicators… but do a great job out of numbers.
8. Lazy colleagues : you’re alone mixed up with a team.
9. Reality hidden by numbers : a lazy guy on a trendy field has good N/N-1 with a lousy attitude which spoils the company’s reputation (get +35% but could have made +60% with a better work), and a great team on a transitioning market gets lukewarm N/N-1 but does a great job for the company, and prepares a bright future for business.

 

Do you have any ideas I could add to this list?

THREE

Numbers are an illusion. They “show” a simple reality, most of the time completely out of the real world, which is moving, multiplugged, complex, and human. Numbers and percentages hide things. They lower your comprehension of what happens.

Talking to people is better. Being smart too. Let % flow around idiots. Have fun.

 

Thanks for reading!

 

Instagram : mariakdolores

 

Music Maps?

ONE

Yesterday I did my exercises. Nah, not pumping iron!

In my locker I chose randomly a 2-3 years old magazine, to read it while I have lunch.

(I don’t like small talk lunches. I sit elsewhere to be alone. My INFTJ alone time is my quality time).

RifRaf was a Belgian free indie rock magazine. I read some interviews of groups I never heard about, then a dozen pages of LP reviews.

I’m 52 and I grew up musically in the eighties, when the “pop-rock era” was still explorable. Gradually, this market became so complex and so huge that I had to learn how to let go – though I suffered a bit, in the 2000s, of a Fear of Missing Something syndrome.

Now that my family has exploded and my daughters adults, I have more time to dive into this indie rock universe, from time to time…

TWO

So : I read reviews and forget all of them immediately – except like 4-5 names I screenshot or write on a piece of paper I fold in my pocket.

Then I torrent’em, home. I’m sorry. It’s because I hate to discover a singer on YouTube, I don’t need images. Let’s blush and assure I’m a “good pirate” : when I love a group I FLAC or MP3 torrented, I buy the CD. I promise!

St Vincent. Blonde Redhead. Vienna Teng. Röyksopp. MGMT. Loney Dear. I bought them!

THREE

I didn’t find much good things, Bert Jansch turned my mind into grey ashes (all good but boring harminies), Animal Collective is too nonsensy – I’m bored-frightened.

I was caught though by the veils and lacy-beats of Cabaret Contemporain – you just wanna microdance with your lover (infinite little movements of shoulders, OK?) in the sunny triangles of the living room. Enough to listen to the whole album.

But how come, each time I find good songwriting, it’s from guys from the North?? The biggest discovery of my last decade were Röyksopp (Norway), and Loney Dear (Sweden). Today the 3 LPs of Jacob Bellens are playing in a happyloop here.

FOUR

Bellens is typically a Type, for me. In an harmonically so poor universe, someone who just KNOW what a bass line really is, someone who tries some smart progression of chords, who knows what a modulation is, becomes like a “Small Wizard”. The man who takes care of music.

Röyksopp are geniuses. I’ve been intoxicated by Loney Dear, Annie Clark or Blonde Redhead. No intoxication here. Jacob Bellens is just… good, always pleasant, a constant disseminator of small good ideas. A sound, a melody, a chord…

Candy for my ears.

FIVE

I found music-map.com, started with Bellens, found that Blonde Redhead links were pretty accurate, and now after a Röyksopp search I’m lost on YouTube for the day!

https://www.music-map.com/r-f6yksopp.html

 

(approaching nervous breakdown maybe ohlala)

Have a nice Sunday!

JP

 

Fear Le Glabru!

The Glabru lives in the attic, he enters at night and make pens ink on stuffs and he torns notebooks rip rip, he puts nails or snails in the shoes and makes knots in woolballs, picks an ember in the fire and puts it on the carpet. He goes also in the kitchen, sours the milk or butter, spoils fruits by putting his fingers into them and spits frog’s spit into the soup.

At night some children sometimes hear the Glabru calling the other Glabrus in other houses with a owly oooh oooh, then they’re talking sitting in a row on a branch they talk about naugthies and sillies to make, and they tell each other the name of kids to teasebother.

Some days things are lost, they break, and the rain falls when it shouldn’t, and stuff trips you and you bang your head on wood beams.

When a Glabru comes noboby hears it but only a few little girls who can protect others with this rhyme :

Glabru je t’ai eu je te croque au sel je te mange cru Glabru lanturlu

Glabru I got you I crunch you with salt I eat you raw Glabru lanturlu

 

 

 

Freely adapted from Claude Roy (Permis de séjour)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Roger Dean

“Non-Narrative Documentaries”

ONE

I have a milestone : Koyaanisqatsi. An hypnotic flow of music and images, and not a word. The splendor of the Earth with the craziness of men.

They made others, Anima Mundi about animals, Powaqqatsi about men working, Naqoyqatsi about violence.

Then, other “images symphonies” like Samsara, Chronos and Baraka, Dogora.

TWO

But there’s another category of “non-verbal films”. It’s when documentaries just SHOW you things. People are interviewd, or you hear them talking in meetings, but there is no narration. No voice who’d tell you what to think, no narrator who’d lead your brain where it’s requested.

You watch and you make your own opinion, like in Berkeley, by Wiseman.

THREE

This could lead to another article : “the voice-over problems in documentaries”.

Most of the time it’s redundant. Or it explains too much, you feel like a lectured kid.

It’s time to Google :

“Best Documentaries of all time” and have one month journey.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/mar/27/50-best-documentaries-alex-gibney-joshua-oppenheimer-james-marsh

 

Have a nice day!

 

 

 

 

 

Needling each other : Chronicle 51

When synthesizers came, many musicians were amazed because “it can mimic any other instruments!”. But of course some guys began to use them for their own possibilities. Isn’t there a tool here?

When something new comes, use it as a tool to go elsewhere and explore, instead of planting it in the old soil – though it could work too, right?

_____

Fraternity between those who don’t play the game.

_____

Oblivion makes you disappear. Fame imprisons in a genre.

_____

Some loss of balance can lead someone to go through their ideas.

_____

Some police investigators are just logical and thorough. Some others have diagnostical impressionism : they have a “clinical sense” which is continuously plugged to the world and human beings…

_____

Rain is happy to meet grass
Grass is happy to meet rain

Claude Roy

_____

What helps us in friendship is not much the help that friends give us, but the trust we have in this help.

____

What is the height of distress, or hardship? To not be surprised by anything.

_____

Maskenfreiheit, the freedom of the mask

_____

The Five Obstructions, Lars von Trier and Jørgen Leth, 2003

In this underrated film the iconoclastic Danish director Lars von Trier challenges experimental film-maker Jørgen Leth to remake one of his earlier films, The Perfect Human, five times, each time with a different creative constraint. The first “obstruction” imposed by von Trier, for example, was that the film had to be made in Cuba, using shots of no more than 12 frames. Another was that it had to be made as a cartoon. It’s basically these two creative egos going up against each other and it gives a fascinating insight into the film-making process, what goes on in a director’s head and how you cope with stress and constraint and challenge. It’s delicious and playful and there’s never a dull moment watching these two maestros needling each other.

Who will you ask to obstruct your work? What for?

Thanks for reading!

Macro Photography : Flowers & Grass

Canon G9X Mark II

“Where Children Sleep” – James Mollison, Photographer

James Mollison travelled the world and took pictures of children… “bedrooms”, from Kentucky to Italy, Brazil, China…

He made a book, “Where Children Sleep”, which is a masterpiece. The power of juxtaposition…

Have a nice day!

JP

Black and White Street Photography